Only 4% Of Women Consider Themselves Beautiful: Is Beauty Truly So Ephemeral?

Only 4% Of Women Consider Themselves Beautiful: Is Beauty Truly So Ephemeral?

Dove, a renowned manufacturer of beauty products, has been conducting an ongoing research into the women’s self-esteem and discovered some very upsetting truths. Only 4% of women and girls consider themselves truly beautiful and this affects their life choices.

Dove’s The Real Truth About Beauty survey and a marketing campaign accompanying it (Beauty Sketches) has long become legendary. It’s one of the most profound international studies on women’s self-esteem that exist today. Unfortunately, its results are quite depressing as less than 20% of women have confidence in their bodies and almost 80% feel pressured to look beautiful.

They say that ‘beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’, but what one can say about this ephemeral concept when only scant 4% of women think themselves beautiful. This number indicates that a staggering number of people on the planet have low self-esteem.

This issue is much more devastating than people give it credit for. It can cause depression and literally ruin a person’s life, forcing them to make detrimental life choices.

How Body Image and Self-Esteem Issues Affect One’s Life

According to Dove, 9 in 10 women and 8 in 10 girls allow their negative perception of self guide their choices. In most cases, this results in women skipping out on various life activities. These include social meetings with friends and loved ones, interviews, etc.

This decision affects the girl’s social life and can be extremely detrimental to her future career. One should never forget that leading an active social life is one of the prevention techniques for not only depression but also dementia.

This survey also states that 9 in 10 women and 7 in 10 young girls resort to body image ‘correcting’ techniques that endanger their health. Some women start fasting to the point where their bodies don’t get enough essential nutrients to function properly. Others resort to more drastic measures, such as self-induced vomiting and taking questionable solutions.

Is There a Solution to the ‘Beauty Problem’?

There definitely is a solution to this issue. According to Dove, about 80% of women and girls feel extremely pressured to ‘look beautiful’ by the media. The worst thing is that the promoted ‘beauty etalon’ is completely unrealistic and mostly comes from the paintbrush of a Photoshop artist.

The only efficient way to truly solve this problem and lift women’s self-esteem is to help them feel better about their bodies. This website offers some ideas on how to achieve that.

People must also discard the ads and other media sources promoting models, who don’t even have natural human proportions. It’s vital to break the unhealthy beauty stereotypes and teach people how to love themselves as they are.